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Review(s): Hash at Hotel Erwin

I have written a couple stories about Joie De Vivre's Hotel Erwin already, so I've been waiting to go in and try the new restaurant there, cheekily named Hash as an oblique reference to one of the commodities sold (and smoked) on the nearby Venice Boardwalk.

Not only did I get to go in and enjoy a meal, but I got twice the work out of it since I had assignments from both LA.com and HotelChatter to cover the restaurant. This was a little problem since, instead of just having to write up one quippy, quirky, succinct review...I'd have to write two...and make them both original. Granted, this is a good problem for a writer to have, and it does come up fairly frequently for me (I have four article assignments and counting just about Vienna from my recent trip), but it still presents an interesting challenge. How to write fresh, original content about the same dinner within a short amount of time for two different publications? It helps when you can focus on a specific aspect that each particular publication will be interested in, or when you are talking to audiences interested in different themes--for instance, hotels versus restaurants. Then again, when it's a restaurant review, the food is front and center, and describing it takes up the main meat (so to speak) of the article, so sometimes the work is done for you.

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